Thursday, September 12, 2024
We recently had a prospect that asked us to build a Roadmap for an Enterprise Project Management and an Earned Value Management system. They have a mix of private sector work and also government work requiring EVMS. At the CFO, COO level they were convinced that knew what they needed.
The government side of the business looked like many of our clients. Based on the Accounting system (Deltek Costpoint), their Scheduling engine (Microsoft Project Server) and the experience of their EVM / Project Controls staff Deltek Cobra was a great fit for half of the business. The Deltek Cobra integration to MS Project and Deltek Costpoint is a common implementation project for Pinnacle.
The Private Sector business fits into an entirely different model that we work with. Their business is custom built software that requires fully functional code deliverables every 2 weeks. Their Project Management issues fit into the Agile mold of PM. There are multiple groups and each use a different set of home grown tools. One group had an Operations Research PhD running their Excel based system as a full time job. The commercial tools that fit their needs are closer to those provided by Rally Software, VersionOne, Serena Software and others.
As mentioned above the CFO and COO were convinced they knew what they needed. That worked OK for the Government division. The owners of the Private Sector work knew that they needed something else entirely. The CFO and COO nodded in agreement as the entire team expressed radically different needs. The Execs summed it up by saying, yes it sounds like we all need the same thing; so, Pinnacle tell us which PM single software tool to buy and then implement them for us.
As a consultant, there are times when you have to take a deep breath and tell your clients they are not quite ready for the next step. The sporty part is telling them that they do not really understand their requirements, and they need to take a step back and redo their needs assessment.
Talk to a Pinnacle professional regarding a solution that is right for your organization. Give Us a Call or 
Topics: Aerospace & Defense, Energy, Utilities, Oil & Gas, Engineering & Construction, Earned Value Management (EVM), Enterprise Project Controls (EPC), Integrated Program Management (IPM), Technology, Project Portfolio Management (PPM), Deltek PPM, Oracle Primavera, Government & Public Sector, Microsoft EPM, forProject Technology, Enterprise Project Management (EPM)
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